What to Wear

PamLovely'16

Graduation. It’s stressful enough as it is. You have to get all your hours, digital portfolio, senior project, pass all of your classes, get accepted to college, decide where to go to college, work out finances, and everything else that seniors must do in order to be thrust into the adult world. Out of all of the (questionable) changes Bedford High School has implemented in the past year the one that causes the most division between students is the graduation gown debacle.

If you have yet to hear about this issue here is a quick briefing; the school system was made aware that students were not comfortable with conforming to the gender rules of males wearing red and females wearing white therefore they made a movement to let people vote on whether we should keep it or let everyone choose what they want to wear.

Some people in the school, as well as some parents, are upset by this new debate because it was never an issue before and it ruins the feng shui of graduation. Many people, however, are glad that everyone gets to be comfortable in what they are wearing. Now this potential tweak to the graduation process has been passed off to the students and parents allowing our input to determine what everyone wears for graduation.

The idea of letting people choose their graduation color is pretty foolproof when you think about it. Nobody is forced into a color and more specifically nobody is forced into a gender. Those who want red can wear red and those who want white can wear white. The argument that “now the number of reds and whites will be uneven” is flawed. As it is, there are an uneven amount of males and females ergo no matter what, there will be an uneven amount of reds and whites unless there is some miraculous 50/50 divide in the gown colors.

Another argument that has been presented is that the people who are unhappy with their assigned color should just ask the principal to switch it for a different color. The problem with this train of thought is that people will still be forced to choose a gender not just a color. For those people who haven’t figured out which gender they identify more as or those who have figured it out and conform to neither or both or those who haven’t come out as one or the other, they shouldn’t be forced into a position where they must pick a side.​If everyone is wearing what they want to wear, why does that upset so many people? Why are people feeling the need to put others in a box? Someone else’s comfort should not be compromised for the aesthetic of having men wear one color and women wearing another. Choose a color you like and wear it. Looking back on the day of graduation you will hopefully remember the wonderful speeches and bulldog pride, not the color gown everyone is wearing.